


The Raven and The Swan

by RoseGoldstein



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Major Character Undeath, Minor Violence, Romance, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-04-30 11:18:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14495799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseGoldstein/pseuds/RoseGoldstein
Summary: *Severus x Hermione. While this is a teacher-student pairing, Hermione is of-age both in the magical and muggle world.*Hermione Granger helped Harry Potter defeat Voldemort, but at a great cost. Ron is gone, Ginny ran off to New Zealand, Harry and Draco eloped, and so Hermione is left practically alone. Her other friends, Neville and Luna, are head over heels in love and Neville is very focused on his apprenticeship. Hermione decides to finish her education at Hogwarts, with a select few others, and then to move on with her life. She yearns to not be treated as a heroine and not be reminded daily of the war that she helped to end. However, her decision to help Severus Snape with his recovery from Nagini's attack has left her with the desire to be closer to him, and neither he nor her know how to handle being back at Hogwarts together.Angst, violence, healing, romance and sexiness ensues.I'm quite enamored with this pairing right now, so you'll probably see other titles of mine with the same pairing but separate stories as well as one-shots.Updates will be slow as I have a job, go to school, and am also dedicated to another SS/HG fic on FanFiction.net.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story will switch back and forth between Hermione's POV and Severus' POV, but mostly focused on Hermione's. POV will be third person throughout except for inner thoughts which will be italicized. POV switches will be indicated as thus; Severus will be -SS- and Hermione will be -HG-.
> 
> While updates will be slow, I hope they will speed up once I finish with my other SS/HG fic over on FF. Despite the slow updates, I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1  
The Refusal

They stood still, both on opposite ends of the hallway, Snape with his wand out, without a light, Hermione with her wand out, alight at the tip. How was he able to walk along in the dark without a lit wand? 

This was the closest she had been to him since she had been with him in St. Mungos, except for during her potions lessons. For some reason (which she’d have to analyze later) she was beginning to feel herself grow nervous and blush. She held her wand out further than she normally would to attempt to conceal her reddened face. “Professor Snape,” she managed. “How...are you?” Lame. So lame.

Ignoring her question, he drawled, “I did not realize you were on the patrol duty roster, Miss Granger.”

“I—well, I’m not, Sir. But I... couldn’t sleep."

"So, you chose to walk around the castle after curfew?"

Hermione couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. Seriously? Curfew? He was going to talk about her breaking curfew when she had fought in the Battle of Hogwarts nearly four months ago? When she had sat by his side day after day, talking him through his recovery? Of course. He was Severus Snape. Of course he was going to bloody well act like nothing had happened and continue to treat her like a student even though she would be nineteen in a matter of days. Well, she technically was still a student. She still attended classes, still slept in her dorm-like chamber with Hannah, still ate in the Great Hall with her classmates... so she was a student. So of course he would treat her like one. That actually felt...refreshing. Finally, someone who wasn’t treating her like a war hero. He was someone who was treating her like she was, well, normal.

She obviously had been thinking to herself for a while for her professor asked, “Are you sleepwalking, or just being especially idiotic?”

Coming back to the present, she brought her eyes to meet his. When he had been in the hospital, his eyes had been sunken, with very little shine, almost dead-like. Now, they were so dark, so endless, but so undoubtedly alive. She felt her heart begin to race. “I, well, yes, I supposed that’s what I decided to do. Walk around the school. I was becoming too restless in my room,” she replied, not being completely honest. Truthfully, she had felt suffocated. Granted, it was a larger space than she had had in the past at Hogwarts, having to share a chamber with four other girls, but being behind closed doors for too long had her feeling trapped, vulnerable, and scarily secluded. As if sensing there was more she wasn't telling him, Snape’s eyes flickered to meet hers as he took a long stride towards her.

“Restless?” he questioned, his deep voice sending a rush through her stomach.

“Ye-yes,” she stuttered. Damn, why was she stammering around him so much? It was just Snape, for Merlin’s sake.

He took another step closer. If he took another step forward the tips of his black leather loafers would be touching her slipper-covered toes. She suddenly, inexplicably, found herself wishing for the contact.

“Twenty points from Gryffindor,” he growled quietly.

She gaped, then closed her mouth quickly and glared up at him in defiance. “That’s all?” The words had slipped out past her lips before she could register what the consequences would be for her insolence. Usually it was Harry making snide remarks to Snape, not her. She saw her professor’s eyes widen for a split-second, but then a cruel sneer spread across his face. She suddenly found herself wishing that she hadn’t said anything at all, but at the same time, her heart sped faster, and not entirely out of fear.

He took another step towards her. She had to tilt her head back to see his eyes, glaring down at her. “Yes, Miss Granger. That. Is. All.”

She gulped. 

“You should return to your room now.”

Part of her wanted to talk back and say that she wouldn’t—that he would have to make her go back, while another part of her wanted to turn and run away, but yet another part wanted to bring her lips up to his and kiss him and see if he was still sneering at her then.

What the hell was wrong with her?

“Goodnight, Professor.” She turned and walked back towards the room she shared with Hannah, thanking Merlin and Morgana she hadn’t stuttered again.

The following evening, Hermione found herself walking the corridors late at night again, this time hoping to run into a certain snarky professor. Even though she had no idea what she'd do if they did cross paths again, she was intent on making it happen. While she walked through the halls for a few hours, the only person she (nearly) ran into was the elderly caretaker, Argus Filch. She could hear his wheezing a mile off and non-verbally cast a Disillusionment Charm, so he was unable to see her as he passed down the same corridor she had been walking down, followed quickly by Mrs. Norris.

Heading back to her room, somewhat ashamed and disgruntled, she made the decision to continue to walk the halls of Hogwarts every night until she and Snape crossed paths again. She knew this would be easy for her since she was plagued by night-terrors every night, causing her to feel restless, suffocated and wide awake. She had calculated that she was losing about 3 to 4 hours of sleep each night, yet still she somehow managed to do alright in her classes.

The school days passed quickly each day, except for her potions class as she was determined to make the minutes go by slowly. She had an uncanny desire to be in the Potion Master’s presence longer each day and, though he paid her the same attention as he always had, she couldn’t help but feel he had been making it a point to stand hovering over her and her potion longer than what it normally would have warranted. Her potions were, of course, impeccable. So why would he need to linger, silently, and so close that the tips of his shoes lightly touched the back of her trainers? Whenever this occurred, at least once or twice in each lesson, she would feel something rising within her, like a flame had been ignited in her lower abdomen.

A week passed this way. Her professor lingering close to his bushy-haired student; Hermione wandering through the castle corridors night after night, hoping to hear the swish of a long cloak and the growl of her name on his lips.

Until finally, Saturday night, two weeks after the start of term had begun, she was walking near the Transfiguration department when an iron-like grip caught her arm. Nearly jumping out of her skin, Hermione spun around and found herself staring up at none other than the tall, dark master of potions. He had not released his grip even though Hermione had let out a squeak of surprise and was now staring past his hooked nose into his midnight eyes. 

“Pro-professor,” she huffed.

“This is the second night I have caught you out after curfew, Miss Granger,” he growled dangerously.

“I—” she was about to attempt a lousy excuse but decided to be braver than that. “I’ve been out every night for the past two weeks, Sir. I’m surprised you hadn’t caught me sooner.”

His eyes narrowed into thin slits as he observed her shrewdly. He had still not let go of her arm and her skin stung where he gripped her. But she didn’t want him to release her. “What is the meaning of this?” he hissed.

Now, that, she thought, was a good question. “I can’t sleep,” she replied. Not a lie, not the complete truth.

“That does not give you the right to walk around the school at night.” Not quite a snarl, but still an admonishment, yet her professor didn’t look as menacing as she had seen him before. It was rather difficult to take him seriously. “Why are you smiling?” he snapped.

Shit. She was smiling? She straightened her face and decided to be honest with her answer. “Well, it’s just… rather hard for me to take you seriously, Sir.”

Without warning, his grip tightened and became painful. She let out a cry in response, but he let go almost before the cry could fully escape her lips. He took a step back, his eyes hard and dark and ominous.

“I would give you a detention, Miss Granger,” he seethed, “but something tells me that is what you expect.”

And what she wished for. Yet she replied, “I don’t expect you to do anything, Professor.” She was massaging her arm where he had been squeezing it.

“Even if I wasn’t a skilled Legilimens, I would still know you are lying. What is it that you want from me?”

“I want...” she chose her next words carefully. “I want to talk to you. Like we talked in St. Mungo’s.”

He cringed noticeable. “The war, and my recovery, is over. We are resuming our lives. I am your professor, you are my student. Did you delude yourself into believe that we had become friends?”

His words stung, but she had been prepared for them. “I didn’t know what we were,” she retorted, rather abrasively. Before he could retort, she added, “But I had hoped we had gotten past the “I’m-a-dungeon-bat-who-doesn’t-have-any-feelings’ bit.” This, she could tell, took him by surprise, most likely because she had been so blasé about referring to him as a ‘dungeon bat’.

“A...dungeon bat?”

She shrugged. “It wasn’t my creation, I assure you. I, along with others, have just heard it being used to describe you. I’m actually impressed, with the student body, that you haven’t heard of it until now. Perhaps your reputation as being the cruelest professor really took hold and so no student ever dare let the epithet possibly fall onto ears that would tell you—let alone your own.”

To Hermione’s astonishment, he smirked. “That isn’t the moniker you would choose to use to describe my person?”

Hermione hadn’t really thought about it. How did she think of Snape, when she thought about him? Sad. Lonely. Misunderstood. Hurt. All the above? But she had never really thought of her own term to describe him. That tended to be other students when wishing to speak resentfully of his character. But then she remembered another name. “The Half-Blood Prince,” she said finally.

Snape’s eyebrows shot up. “That was an adolescent name.”

“But it’s still better than dungeon bat or greasy git, in my opinion.”

“Greasy—!”

“If you hadn’t noticed, Professor, I don’t think you’re a git. Or greasy. Though, I wouldn’t really know because I’ve never actually touched your hair. I mean, I used to think you were a git but not anymore.”

“What a shame,” he replied, lazily. His tense stance was beginning to relax, his wand lowering slightly as he continued to survey her.

“Not really,” Hermione disagreed, spurred on by his chance in demeanor. “It’s rather refreshing, actually. I always knew that there was more to you. I just didn’t know quite how much.”

“You presume to know me just because I gave Potter my memories? Memories, which, I do hope you realize, provided the right information for him to understand what my role was and what his role needed to be, and nothing more.”

“I don’t presume to know you, Sir,” she replied quickly. “But I do know something, now. And that’s better than nothing.”

There was a silence that passed between them like a rolling wave. Hermione was still waiting for his anger to come crashing over her, calling an end to their conversation and deciding on her punishment.

Finally, he spoke. “I think you should go back to your room now.”

“I don’t want to. I can’t sleep. And when I can’t sleep I feel...suffocated...in there.”

He was giving her a puzzled look. That was new. Usually his expressions towards her were either unreadable, disdainful, annoyed, or border-line angry. But in one night she had successfully made him surprised and puzzled. She liked where this was going.

“Would it make you feel less suffocated if I escorted you back to your room and checked in your closet and under your bed for monsters?”

She chose to ignore the blatant jab at her maturity and instead replied, “That would be...nice.”

“Lead the way,” her professor drawled, indicating with his hand that she should begin walking.

They walked together in silence, but Hermione found herself laughing inwardly at the thought of an on-looker stumbling upon them. The tall wizard in his black attire, robes flowing about him, and she, in her silken lavender pajamas, walking beside him and trying not to smirk. It most certainly would have been an interesting sight.

They eventually reached her room. She pulled out her wand, cast the charm to unlock it, and stepped into the entryway. She turned in time to see Snape watching her coldly and she responded by waving her hand towards the inside of her room. “Would you like to come in?”

His glower was strong enough to be a jinx. He spun on his heels and strode away. 

Hermione called after him in a carrying whisper, “To check for monsters!” but he continued down the corridor without looking back. The young witch sensed, however, that she had gotten under his skin…and if not his skin, then at least the long sleeves of his frock coat.

-SS-

The nerve of her. To assume that, at school, they could converse with one another as they had during his recovery? Didn’t she realize how inappropriate that would be? Perhaps not, he realized. Perhaps she was truly silly enough to believe she was able to receive special treatment since she had fought in the battle and had helped Potter bring down the Dark Lord. Well, she was sadly mistaken then, for he was not the kind of man to treat his students as more than what they were—students.

Yet, he had to admit to himself, if there was one student who could tempt him into dropping his guards, it would be the wild-haired Gryffindor. She had been a comfort to him during his recovery. While at first she had been annoying, and then frustrating, she had eventually become a light spot in his grey day. But he would never let anyone know this, most especially her. Because he had begun to notice things about her that he would rather not notice. Like her womanly curves, the glimmering of her eyes whenever she smiled, the way her fingers deftly tended to potion ingredients. She was still a student, of-age or not, and worse still, he was nearly twenty years her senior. If he should be noticing the womanliness of anyone, it should be with someone his own age, or at least, someone only slightly younger.

So, he was angry. With himself, for the fact that she was on his mind day and night, and that he longed to be closer to her—physically, emotionally, mentally. He was angry that she was showing an interest in him, provoking him, and almost demanding to be treated differently. She was tempting him to break his resolve and probably didn’t even realize it.


	2. The Passage

Chapter 2  
The Passage

September 19th, 1998. Hermione was 19 years old. She felt much, much older. Luckily, Minerva had her on an accelerated NEWT program and, hopefully, she’d be sitting her exams in late January. It wasn’t that she was especially anxious to get away from Hogwarts, but she hated the continued label of “student” when she felt the title no longer applied to her. Still, only four and a half more months, and she would be done.

Yes, it was her birthday, and she had received cards and small gifts from Harry and Draco, Ginny, Neville and Luna, and even Molly. Hagrid had also given her a new quill earlier in the day, and Minerva had given her a very old copy of Transfiguration Through Time. While the gifts and cards were all nice and, mostly, heartfelt, she still felt depressed. So much had changed since the end of the war…and to think that it had only been four months ago.

With Ron and Fred both gone, the Weasley family had been nearly destroyed with grief. Hermione knew that both Molly and Arthur would’ve gladly given their own lives if it meant saving their two sons. Molly and Ginny had taken it worse than anyone, from what Hermione could tell. Ginny went, as George sadly put it, “flying off her broomstick handle” while Molly had just succumbed to depression. And so, now, Ginny was living on her own in New Zealand, Molly and Arthur lived with George, and Harry… 

Oh, Harry. He, out of everyone, was the most changed. Hermione suspected that there were many reasons, probably more than she could think of herself, but she knew for sure that Harry had, simply put, gone through too much. For nearly eight years of his life he had dedicated his existence to the downfall of Voldemort. Now, Voldemort was gone, and most of his followers dead, captured, or viciously pursued by Aurors. But Harry sank into the strangest kind of depression, almost feeling as if half of him was gone, missing, never to be found again. Harry thought it could be because Voldemort had destroyed the part of his soul that had been inside Harry his entire life. Hermione thought Harry was simply lost, in need of another purpose.

For reasons he still wouldn’t explain to her, Harry had sought the company of Draco Malfoy. And Draco, wanting to escape from not only the hatred he experienced from the wizards and witches in Britain, but from his parents as well, wanted to find refuge in America. Harry joined him, and still hadn’t told Hermione why, but at least he was in contact with her. She hadn’t admitted to him that she felt as if he had abandoned her, especially after Ron… and she knew she never would tell him. If she would suffer for anyone, it would be for Harry. If Harry thought he could find himself again in America, then she thought he could, too. And she would just have to make do with being alone for the first time in eight years.

Hermione didn’t know when Harry would be back, or if he ever would be, so each day she did her best to go over all the different options she had left to her after she finished school. This distracted her from the intense pain she felt and helped her to focus on her studies. But what was also helping to distract her was the current obsession she had with a certain dark, surly Hogwarts Professor. So, even on her birthday, as she had been doing every other night, she found herself walking the castle after hours, hoping for another encounter.

She was just about to head back to her room when she felt a warm draft of air tickle the back of her neck. She looked around, expecting to see a lit torch or perhaps an ignited wand-tip. Yet nothing was there. She nonverbally cast the incantation that would strength the light from her wand and used it to look around for the source of unexpected air. She saw a large portrait to her right, placed in between two suits of armor. The portrait was that of a woman, a man, and presumably their son in front of them, standing together in a field and behind them grazed a herd of black horses. Like all the portraits in Hogwarts, the painted figures were moving. The grass the horses grazed in was blowing in a light breeze, the horses were chewing and swishing their tails, and the mother and father were smiling down at their son in what could only be described as pride. The son, however, was staring at Hermione, and he looked rather nervous, perhaps fearful, even. Hermione felt the warm draft of air again and she immediately realized it was coming from the portrait, though she knew that to be highly unlikely. Remembering the portrait of Ariana Dumbedore, Hermione guided her wand towards the painting, determined to see if it was a hidden passage.

Without warning, the two suits of armor drew their swords and slashed them in front of Hermione, missing her wand by millimeters. She gasped and backed away as the knights blocked her from coming any nearer to the portrait.

“What is my greatest regret?” the young boy in the portrait asked.

“I’m so-sorry, what did you say?” Hermione asked, still recovering from her fright.

“What is my greatest regret?” the young boy asked again.

“I don’t—I don’t know. Who are you?” the startled witch replied.

“In my youth I was love and spoiled. In my adolescence I was a Slytherin and befriended many. In my later years I was twice a teacher.”

Hermione thought. It seemed that the portrait was giving her clues but would not tell her outright who they were. She wondered if the portrait would give her more clues.

“Are you still living?” she asked.

But the boy in the painting simply repeated the words he had said before. So, determined, Hermione stood and looked over the painting, taking in the faces of all three of its occupants. Then she thought if she knew any Hogwarts professors who was both a Slytherin and a friend to many.

The round, aged face of a jolly, pot-bellied man suddenly came to her mind. Horace Slughorn.

“Are you Horace Slughorn?” Hermione asked the painting.

The young boy did not reply, but his fearful expression was replaced with a small smile.

“Your greatest regret…” Hermione murmured, thinking to herself out loud. She tried to recall everything that she knew about Slughorn, which was not much, and then what Harry had told her about him. She knew that he had been the one to confirm Voldemort’s theory about Horcruxes, and the one to answer Voldemort’s question on the same subject. He had also been very, very reluctant to share that fact with anyone, including Albus Dumbledore. It had been Harry, under the influence of Felix Felicis, who had retrieved the full confession from Slughorn.

“Your greatest regret was…” Hermione thought how to best answer the question. “Was telling Voldemort about Horcruxes.”

The boy’s smile faded. The knights continued to block her from coming closer to the portrait.

She was sure that was the correct answer. But how to phrase it? And then, it hit her. Slughorn had told Voldemort about Horcruxes while he was a student, not an adult.

“Your greatest regret was telling Tom Riddle about Horcruxes.”

The boy nodded gravely. He lifted his left arm and the portrait seemed to shudder but made no sound as it began to open outwards towards Hermione. The suits of armor sheathed their swords once more and bowed to her, creakily, as if permitting her entry.

Without hesitating, Hermione crept inside what appeared to be a tunnel. It veered almost immediately to the left and as she took a few tentative steps along the uneven ground, she heard the portrait close behind her. Glancing back quickly, she pulled out her wand and it ignited, allowing her to see where to step and when to turn. She followed the tunnel for at least fifteen or twenty minutes as it twisted and turned and at many intervals sloped downward until at last she could see the end.

Three steps led down to what appeared to be a large window, large enough for the average sized man to step through. As she came closer she saw that, on the other side of the window, was a room. From what she could see, two sides of the room housed bookshelves that reached the ceiling and were stuffed with books—possibly thousands of them. The wall farthest from her and directly across from her had a large fireplace, most likely one that could be used to floo to other fireplaces. In front of the fireplace sat two armchairs. There was other furniture in the room; a writing desk with a wooden chair, a black couch, a sitting room table and under the table an intricately designed oriental rug over a stone floor. If she had to guess, Hermione figured she must be somewhere in the dungeons. Which likely meant that the room she was peering at belonged to…

Severus Snape walked into the room from a door to the left and proceeded to kick the writing desk, causing it to topple over, spilling all its contents onto the floor, and causing Hermione to nearly jump out of her skin. The sounds were muffled, likely due to a Silencing Charm, but his frightful actions were enough to have her heart racing. Part of her brain frantically screamed at her to run in the other direction, but the other part of her brain was entranced with the fact that firstly, Snape was throwing what seemed to be a tantrum, and secondly, he wore nothing but his black dragon-hide boots and black trousers. She stared, gawking, at the way the muscles of his bare torso and arms rippled as he continued to throw punches into his sitting room’s couch. His entire torso, and parts of his arms, were covered in jagged scars. Hermione could tell they were old, but she also knew from the fact that they were so easily seen even from the distance she stood at that they were cursed scars—scarring unable to be concealed by spells or healed completely by potions. After he finished beating up his couch, he threw back his head and yelled and raked his hands through his hair. He yanked on fistfuls of it, still yelling, and then fell to his knees, slamming the palms of his hands onto the stone floor.

Hermione’s heart felt like it was breaking. At first, she was in awe at how he looked, and the fact that the man who always seemed so rigid and confined was displaying a fit of rage. But as she continued to watch him, and as she watched him now, reaching out his arm and grabbing the side of an armchair to help pull himself up into it, she felt suffocated in sorrow for the man. This was not just a tantrum or a fit of rage… this was a total and complete breakdown. An undoing of being.

Feeling the need to hold onto something so she didn’t collapse herself, she leaned against the wall of the tunnel and clutched at her robes just over her heart. She literally felt an ache there as she saw his shoulders tremble and his head fall into his hands. Severus Snape, the wizard who deceived Voldemort, the man who helped save the wizarding world, the one who she had bantered with and read Shakespeare with in St. Mungos not four months ago, was breaking in front of her eyes.

He brought his head up and turned his face towards her, staring in her direction for the first time since he had entered the room, and she gasped. He could surely see her just as plainly as she saw him. And oh, what would he do then?

But no. His eyes were glazed over and tear streaks were glistening on either side of his face. Though he stared in her direction, he gave no indication of seeing her—as if he couldn’t. And, though frightened of what he would do if he could see her, she still felt the need to run to him, hold him, comfort him, ask him what’s wrong, and kiss him all over his scars and face.

She stayed for what felt like an hour, watching him, waiting to see what would happen, and was surprised when, quite suddenly, he stood up from his seat, pulled his arms back over his head, and stretched. He reached towards the other armchair and saw him retrieve his wand. He then began to repair all the damage he had inflicted on his sitting room. When everything was put right, she watched him yawn, rub his face with his hands, and then stalk back over to the door he had entered from. She waited at least ten minutes to see if he would return, but he didn’t. And she couldn’t have felt more confused.

For the next five nights, around the same time, she went down the tunnel and watching him through the tunnel’s large window. Each night, he would break down. One night he threw the desk and it smashed into his bookshelf. One night he grabbed the cushions from his couch and hurled them right at her, and she almost had a heart attack, fearing the window would break and she would be discovered, or hurt. One night he slammed his fists so hard into the stone ground that he broke his knuckles. She had nearly given up her position that night, feeling the need to heal him immediately, but at the end of his breakdown, before righting the room again, he had healed his hand. She just couldn’t understand it. His breakdown seemed almost ritualistic, but if it was, it was one of the unhealthiest rituals she had ever heard of.

And it was becoming unbearable. Seeing him like that, night after night, and not being able to comfort him. She hadn’t dare approached him in class, and she had foregone trying to run into him in the corridors after hours once she had seen how distraught he was. But why was he distraught? What was killing him inside? And why wasn’t anyone helping him? 

_Because he won’t let anyone know,_ she answered herself. _But I know._

And it was getting harder and harder for her to just stand by, watching but not acting, not helping.

Finally, on her seventh night visiting the passageway and watching as her potions professor threw papers from his desk and punched the bare wall above the fireplace, Hermione decided that she could not stand by and simply bear witness. She had to act. She had to help him, somehow. 

As soon as Snape slouched down into his armchair and buried his face in his hands as he had done on previous nights, Hermione whispered “Aberto” and the enchanted window, or door, whichever it was, opened without a sound. She non-verbally cast the “Quietus” charm on her slipper-covered feet and the door and pushed it open enough for her to step into the room. Keeping her eyes trained on Snape’s form, she let the door hang open and made her way across the room, towards the weeping man. Her heart was a galloping Hypogriff in her chest that grew more frantic with each step she took.

When she was close enough to touch him, she held out her hand and reached towards his face.

Just as her fingers were inches from his cheek, as if he had been stung with a stinging jinx, Snape’s head snapped up. His face was red, wet, and drained of color. His swollen eyes found hers and a look of terror and disbelief overtook his face. She watched, as in slow motion, as his eyes darkened, and she knew that fury was rapidly replacing what had been shock.

Without thinking, Hermione reacted swiftly. She placed her hands on either side of his broad chest, gripping the top of his shoulders with her fingers and placing pressure on his collar bones with her palms. As she did this, she straddled his lap, closed her eyes, and pressed her lips against his. 

-SS-

She was kissing him. 

That insufferable, insolent, disobedient, nosey, annoying Gryffindor was sitting on his lap and kissing him. 

And it wasn’t just one, chaste kiss, but many, and all of them passionate.

And he was kissing her back.

-HG-

Hermione felt his arms come up around her, one gently resting on her lower back and the other combing its way through her thick, curly hair. His mouth was warm and tasted strongly of elderflower wine. While his teeth were slightly crooked, they didn’t impede her enjoyment whatsoever. He may not have been a well-practiced kisser, but he certainly knew how. She gently touched her tongue to his and he responded hungrily, pulling her into him closer as their kissing turned desperate.

She couldn’t believe that he was kissing her back, but she loved it. 

-SS-

Her body was so hot, and so soft, and she felt so good in his arms. 

For a moment, Severus forgot who the girl was in his arms, kissing him. 

He just enjoyed it. 

He hadn’t been kissed in a very long time and suddenly found himself starving for as much as he could get. 

-HG-

She felt her excitement and desire building. Feeling his arms around her, his wild kisses, and the way he felt underneath her—strong, solid, receptive—she began letting her instincts take over. Grinding her hips back and forth into his lap she immediately felt his body respond. A low moan escaped his lips and she responded by pressing into his body harder, deeper, as if she were trying to melt past his clothes and down to his bare flesh. Maybe she was. She certainly felt like that’s what she wanted.

-SS-

What in Merlin’s name— 

He couldn’t think.

-HG-

Who was she? Who was he? Who would they be?

-SS-

What was happening?

-HG-

She was Hermione Granger, a famous war heroine who suffered nightly from terrible dreams. She was a witch who had seen and experienced too much. She was a girl who just wanted to feel wanted—but not to save the wizarding world.

And he was Severus Snape, the wizard who had fooled them all, who kept to the shadows, who acted as if nothing could ever touch him. He was a man who, moments before, had been breaking. 

And she couldn’t let that happen. 

-SS-

He was snogging a witch. 

And he was melting into her. 

He was snogging Hermione Granger, one of his least favorite students. 

And he was wanting to be inside her so, so badly. 

Granger.

_NO._

Using all his willpower, he forced himself to draw back. In one smooth motion he stood up, taking her up with him, and forced her back onto her feet. She was panting and staring up at him, breathless and asking him with her eyes Why?.

-HG-

Why had he stopped? Why had he pulled away? It had been so nice. So…good. 

-HG-

“Miss…Granger,” he said, voice hoarse. It took him a few more moments to say his next words and she waited with bated breath. “You should not be here.” 

That’s when his eyes strayed from her face and over to the place she had come from. It had been a painting, but now appeared to be a door that lead to a concealed passageway.

“What in the hell…?” Pushing past her he approached the hidden entrance. 

Hermione turned and watched him and realized that it hadn’t been a window or a door at all, but a very large painting. Three Thestrals stood in the background, while a beautiful field of purple and dark blue flowers billowed in a soft breeze in the foreground. It was so beautiful and life-like that she imagined she could step into the painting and into the field.

“You… you have been watching me.” It was an accusation. He wheeled on her and his eyes were dangerously dark. 

Hermione felt her words catch in her throat.

“You were watching me!” he bellowed. He rushed at her and gripped her shoulders, giving her one hard shake as he snarled, “How long?”

Hermione stuttered wordlessly. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. He was so angry. Angrier than she had ever, ever, seen him. 

“Answer me!” he yelled and shook her again. 

She crumpled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment below what you think about this second chapter! And thank you for reading!


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